


Point Of No Return

by demisms



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Casual Sex, Drugs, Gratuitous Action Sequences, M/M, Marriage, Multi, Spies & Secret Agents, Undercover Missions, World Domination, marriage problems, spy husbands
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 22:25:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5761171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demisms/pseuds/demisms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is, of course, the world where Lee Unwin threw himself on a grenade to save his companions. Eggsy Unwin had stepped out of Holborn Police Station seventeen years later, run into Harry Hart and things go from there.</p><p>But in this lifetime, Lee Unwin had died with his squad.</p><p>—</p><p>Or: The One Where Eggsy's Picked Up By Another Spy Agency, Falls In Love With Harry Hart Anyway, And It's All Very Mr & Mrs Smith...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Before

The air was thick. Muggy; near stifling. It was the sort of heavy weather that could make you sweaty under the arms within thirty seconds of walking outside. And while he’d posted up in one of the more expensive hotels in Casablanca, the rest of the city didn’t seem to believe in air conditioning — least of all here, in the heart of the slums. The air stank in that decidedly  _ human _ way that most the impoverished corners of the world tended to, but the urge to retch had subsided hours ago. Now Eggsy was sucking in air with the same unbiased abandon as everyone else, and was constantly mopping his brow in a vain attempt to keep the sweat out of his eyes.

 

He was looking for something, for someone. But he’d never been exceptionally good at finding Waldo in those books, and this thick throng of human bodies was like a real life version of that — only Eggsy didn’t even know what the fuck his mark looked like anymore. Men running for their lives didn’t tend to keep the same hair cuts or facial hair after all. He only knew that he was American and looking to procure radioactive materials for nefarious purposes. 

 

And they couldn’t be having  _ that _ , could they?

 

In his ear, a pointedly flat voice hummed at him. “Intel,” he’s reminded cordially, and has to actively resist the urge to roll his eyes. On the vitals monitor back at Headquarters, his pulse must reflect the spike of irritation he feels, because the dissociate  calm voice continues. “An absence of information is informative in its own way.”

 

Which was just a nice way of saying that if Eggsy can’t find Dr. Jeffords in Morocco, he’s probably not there at all. It’s not as comforting as he thinks his handler intends, because all a failed mission ever means is a long ass plane ride home, and then a long ass plane ride to wherever they next spot the good doctor — all with very little rest in between. He probably wouldn’t be able to go home for at least another two weeks. 

 

Eggsy gnashed his teeth so hard there’s a whimper of feedback, but lets out a cooperative, “Understood.”

 

There’s another hum. Then radio silence — a cue to return to his grunt work.

 

From the rather decrepit residential area, he makes his way into a marketplace that hadn’t been on any of the maps, nor present three hours ago when he had come down this way. But the hastily erected booths are a welcome sight, and he’s more than happy to overpay for a bottle of cool water. The plastic of the Dasani bottle is sweating more than Eggsy is, and pressing it to his forehead is pleasantly refreshing. After about thirty more minutes, he buys a meat pastry from the least shady looking stand, and posts up on a pile of rubble that seems to be serving as both a jungle gym and bench. Even swarming with screaming children and crooked, bent old women, it’s a nice spot — gives him a reasonably good view of the entire square while having something solid at his back, just in case Jeffords had caught on to the fact he was being tailed and hopped on the offensive. It wasn’t unheard of. Scientist types always seemed to go a little bonkers when backed into a corner. They were like wounded animals approached by hunters if they got desperate enough, and it’d only taken a close call with hydrochloric acid for Eggsy to learn to never underestimate his prey. No one would ever call him cautious, but he recognizes the tactical advantage of sitting back and just  _ watching _ sometimes.

 

Except it does little good for him here —  intel missions are almost never  _ just _ intel missions — and everything goes to shit all at once.

 

Behind a cart with a torn canopy that looks like it was once a bedsheets, there’s a red door. And behind that red door, a rather heated debate had sprung up between two local thugs — a debate which eventually must have morphed into an argument, then a fight. Then suddenly bursts into the street, men roaring colorful insults in different languages and guns drawn, and becomes a full blown fire fight. He can feel something in the air, a slight shift in the split second before the shooting starts — Survive long enough wading through different pools of violence, the taste becomes easy to recognize, even in hot, putrid air — and takes that split second to resent the ease with which all the wrong people in the world could access firearms. Then he has to throw himself sideways to avoid getting shot when a spray of bullets riddles the rocks he’d been perched on. The screaming starts before he hits the cobblestones, builds in volume as terror sets into the crowd and washes out in waves, more and more people realizing what’s happening and trying to get out of the way. 

 

It takes Eggsy a moment to realize he’s half landed on top of a wriggling, panicking child who’d been playing around his knees a few seconds before. But she’s screaming too, thrashing under his weight and managing to knock him square in the jaw with a small, sharp elbow. 

 

Copper rushes in his mouth. Compliments the spices used in his pastry. He shakes his head and tries to push himself up, blinks around for a side street to make a run for. 

 

This isn’t his fight. This isn’t his mission.

 

But another high velocity round bites into the rubble just above his head, spraying pebbles in his hair, and the girls screaming gives way to terrified whimpers. 

 

“Fuck,” he seethes, morality and self preservation at war as a shrill ringing starts in his ear. But they have to move  _ now _ . “Come on.”

 

She obviously doesn’t understand him. In the rush, he’s forgotten all his Arabic. But there’s no fuss when he pulls her to her feet, crouches over her shoulders and half-shoves, half-drags her out of the line of fire. If one of them had to take a bullet, it ought to be him; wouldn’t be the first time he’s been shot, Eggsy could handle it. 

 

There’s a sudden lull in the gunfire. Who he assumes are the two head honchos can be heard screaming at each other — insults, mostly — and some of their lackies are dead in the street. The scent of blood is masked by the smell of gore from the butcher carts, but he knows it's there. The gunmen are paying little mind to the civilians, and as a majority of the other people in the square make their escapes the thunder of panic fades. Eggsy figures this whole ordeal was more of a prick measuring contest than about killing innocents. He doesn’t think they were actively trying to shoot any of them, but he definitely has to pull the girl over the dead body of the teenage boy he’d bought his water from. She sobs a little. He barely blinks.

 

They make it mostly out of harm's way before the shooting starts up again; find a stall full of bolts of cloth that had been abandoned by its owner and duck behind the wooden counter planks. There’s a roughly child sized box under the more colorful wares, which he wastes no time pushing the little girl into. “It’ll be okay.” Belatedly he notices the bitter smell of urine in the air. She’s wet herself, and he doesn’t blame her — probably would have done so too, if he was her age and new to this form of fanfare. “You’ll be alright. Just —  _ stay _ here.”

 

She’s got a death grip on his arm, tries to drag him into the tiny box with her when he goes to leave. And Eggsy almost has to laugh.

 

“No,  _ no _ love. I’ve got to go.”

 

He makes a point to squeeze her hand while peeling her fingers off. Smiles before draping a cloth over the box, and standing straight. There’s still chaos in the streets, but Eggsy feels oddly at home in the ruckus. He’s started more than his fair share of fights, and ended them too — far better at instigating than diffusing. But he’s a little off his game, a little sloppy. Dehydrated maybe, or it’s just bad luck because when he steps out from behind the stall, it’s directly in the pathway of the cowed, retreating thug and his semiautomatics. 

 

“Shit,” Eggsy swears. Maybe he ought to have stayed with the little girl, he thinks as one man snarls and trains the barrel of his weapon on him. And he tries to run but before he can even turn, something’s hitting him square in the middle. There’s arms around his waist, and someone is tackling him to the filthy cobblestones. 

 

In a second, they’re on the ground. The air is squished out of his lungs by the other person's weight, and his head bounces on the cobblestones. And for a moment the world goes black.

 

—

 

There is, of course, the world where Lee Unwin threw himself on a grenade to save his companions. Eggsy Unwin had stepped out of Holborn Police Station seventeen years later, run into Harry Hart and things go from there.

  
But in this lifetime, Lee Unwin had died with his squad.


	2. Chapter 2

“Eggsy, baby. Do you mind if Dean hangs around for a bit?” his mother had asked him one day. He was seven; had looked from his cartoons with a rather pinched expression, and immediately flicked his gaze to where Dean Baker was lounging on the couch with a lazy grin and a beer in hand. 

 

So far he'd paid the man about as much mind as he would if he were a particularly boring goldfish. He was his mums friend, not his; none of her other friends had stuck around very long and Eggsy had learned to block out the inconstants in his life. Inconstants made Michelle weepy.

 

But now that the man may be a more permanent addition to their sofa, Eggsy looks at Dean in a whole new light. Speculatively. 

 

“Eggsy?”

 

And he doesn’t like what he sees. There’s something about the man that he doesn’t have the vocabulary to explain, and distrust twists in his gut. But Michelle’s eyes are bright, and she’s smiling for real; preemptively excited for her son's approval. Maybe he was being stupid; a silly, jealous little boy who wanted his mother all to himself. Dean had bought him a really nice pair of trainers the other day, and maybe the two of them could play catch some time, or hang out and watch a football match together. So —

 

“Nah, I don’t mind.”

 

But he minds a little bit when, twenty minutes later, Dean switches the television to wrestling without asking.

 

—

 

Eventually Michelle Unwin becomes Michelle Baker. They stop bringing winter crysthaniums to Lee’s grave when Eggsy’s eleven. Dean doesn’t like taking the train that far out of town, to the cheaper plots. And when they leave him at home, he complains that it isn’t safe for the two of them to go either. 

 

Eggsy is of the opinion that that’s complete bullshit. But he’s not brave enough to say it to his stepfather's face yet. The man is burly; he's got a thick neck and meaty hands that are always clammy with warm sweat. Eggsy hates when Dean touches him, blanches at even so much as a pat on the shoulder because even the smallest of brush always makes him feel dirty and slightly menaced. He's scary, his stepfather. Scary good at what he does, be it charming Michelle, half-assedly trying to win over Eggsy, or keeping his small gang of younger men in line with rude jokes and well tailored brute leadership. All his  _ boys _ manage to look like shady twats. They don't respect Michelle very much, and couldn't give a rats arse about Eggsy, though they do an alright job keeping their distaste under wraps at first. 

 

It was never clear to him exactly how Dean always managed to have enough cash for nice televisions and a lot of low quality alcohol, but when Eggsy's ten, Poodle gives him a crash course in all the different types of narcotics and amphetamines on the street; lays out seven neat, tidy baggies on the coffee table and drills him on their contents until Dean and Michelle drunkenly return home, stumbling and laughing like a real happy couple. There's no mention of the very illegal, very expensive spread in the living room, but Eggsy pays close attention to the damp roll of bills Dean peels a couple of notes off. He can put two and twenty together, and guess where those came from.

 

Dean tells them to go get ice cream — "Or some shit."

 

And in a record amount of time Gary Unwin goes from Olympic gymnastics team material to the best drug runner in his estate. It's lucrative and suits both his social and shoe-centric needs. He makes a few friends, and a healthy amount of acquaintances, to the point he can walk down the street any given day and exchange overly friendly nods with at least a handful of people. He likes to fancy himself the best car thief in London as well.

He has a good run, too. Two years floating near the top, living a reasonably high life between the occasional bruised rib and black eye. But like almost everything else in his life, that eventually goes tits up.

 

—

 

“We should leave it, man,” he hisses, then gives up on keeping a low profile and shouts over the car alarm echoing off the concrete walls: “Leave it!”

 

But Poodle doesn't listens to him. Dean’s lackies never really listen to him, and only bring him along because he’s the best driver out of the lot of them. Sure, after he’d stolen Rottweilers keys and gone for a joyride, they’d beat the shit out of him. But driving backwards and still managing to evade police in the long run earns you the sort of reputation even pricks like them could respect.

 

This wasn’t the first time they’d stolen a car from a well respected establishment. The hotel garage had valet parking and security cameras in the corners, so they’d worn ski masks. Now Poodle was sweating into his eyes, and having trouble hot-wiring the Benz so they could get the fuck out of here. The fact they’d set off the alarm and so far had failed to turn it off was starting to freak him out a little. The shrill blare was grating his nerves and turning him into a frazzled, antsy mess.

 

“Almost got it,” Poodle grunts, but Eggsy’s had it. The mark of a good criminal is knowing when to bail before you’re right fucked, and they’re pretty close to fucked. So Eggsy curses — “Damn it!" — and turns to run. 

 

But barely makes it around the edge of the trunk before he runs straight into a security guard; bounces off his chest and falls spectacularly on his arse. His tail bone smarts, his pride is bruised, and his wrist pops painfully when he throws out a hand to catch himself. But mostly he’s scared shitless. The security guard is old. He’s got grey hair and wrinkles, and something hard in his eyes that strikes a chord in Eggsy’s chest, even as he scrambles backwards. There’s a taser in the old mans hand, and he’s weaponless.

 

“Fuck.”

 

“There’s no need for that kind of language, son. Let’s not make this difficult — I’ve already phoned the police, and they’ll be here soon.”

 

“That’s me fucked then, innit?” Eggsy grunts, and maybe he moves a little too suddenly because suddenly the taser is clicked on.

 

Then there’s two gunshots. And the guard drops it.

 

Red patches of blood start to blossom on his impeccably starched work shirt before he so much as wobbles, expanding in diameter at an aggressive rate. Eggsy watches as the old man stumbled, slumps against the car, and slides down the well polished door. He’s transfixed, the alarm muffled by the blood rushing in his ears at the sight of the blood rapidly gushing out of the other man's chest cavity. The security guard is struggling to breathe, gasping wetly and eyes popping. He looks like he's in a lot of pain — which he probably is, Eggsy reasons; death probably hurts. A lot. He’s brought unpleasantly back to the vastness of reality by Poodle kicking him, urging him up.

 

“C’mon, Eggsy,” the fat man urges, looking ruddy behind the mask he's pulled back on. It’s probably only the cotton over his mouth that spares Eggsy a deluge of rabid spit across his face. “Get the fuck up.”

 

“You shot him.”

 

“Get up, you heard him — the pigs’ll be here any second.”

 

“You — he’s gonna  _ die _ !” Which doesn’t sit well at all; tastes bitter on his tongue and churns his stomach. All at once, Eggsy’s spurred onto his knees, and crawls towards the guard in earnest. Poodle gives up on him, shoves his way past, and drops the gun somewhere beyond. Faintly, he registers the clatter of the piece on concrete, but is too preoccupied trying to stop the bleeding to notice where he'd left it. The guard lets out a pained groan when Eggsy presses his hands to the red shirt, low and animal in desperation. Even with all his weight and good intentions put into keeping the man's blood inside his body, it still oozes between his fingers and onto his pants, his sleeves, the ground beneath them.

 

He bleeds out. Slowly.

 

The fingers around his wrist — was he prying him off? pulling him closer? — go limp, and all Eggsy can hear is his own breathing for a while. Eventually, sirens start wailing in the distance, and he shakily withdraws to rub a hand over his sweaty brow. Too late, he realizes he’d just smeared blood across his mask, and rips off the offending fabric in a flourish, back to a wheel and trying not to hurl as he stares at the fresh body in front of him. “Fuck, what the fuck,” he wheezes over and over until the police arrive.

 

When they put him in the back of the car, bloodied and handcuffed, and drive off, the remaining officers are still trying to turn off the alarm. 

 

—

 

He’s a little shy of eighteen.

 

But George Turley had been six months from retirement; had had a baby grandson named after him. And the jury’d had murder in their eyes during the court proceedings.

 

—

 

The prison bus — occupants: Eggsy, and only Eggsy — pulls over rather unexpectedly on the side of a rather deserted stretch of road. It jars him from the light doze he’d been lulled into by the sway of the meandering vehicle. Between the trial, sentencing, and having to say goodbye, the last few days had been downright exhausting. His mother had wept openly, his baby sister had howled without really knowing why, and Dean had been — appropriately — absent. With the crime scene photos plastered across a tack board in the courtroom, Eggsy’d been having rather stressful, recurring night terrors in his holding cell, and hadn’t slept more than a few hours at a time for the past week. At least now, on his way to prison, his fate was sealed and the shroud of uncertainty was lifted. Now he could just definitively say he as a fuck up.

 

A rather confused fuck up, though, as he calls up to the driver — “Why’ve we stopped?” — and receives no response. Deemed a ‘danger to society’, Eggsy’d been handcuffed before being escorted into the car, then again when situated in back, so his wrists were tethered to an iron rod bolted across the back of the seat in front of him. There’s no real way he could uncuff or unbuckle himself, but as the minutes tick by and his escorts continue to ignore him, he starts to strain at his bonds regardless. The whole month had been a whirlwind clusterfuck, and between the insomnia and vehemence spat at him from the prosecution and member of the press, by the time the van's sliding door is drawn open with a bang, Eggsy’s convinced he’s about to be murdered by a rogue, vigilante cop. 

 

That’s why he screams when the door bangs open.

 

“Argh, Jesus fuck,  _ don’t _ —“

 

“Mr. Unwin.”

 

The young woman stood just outside the van, smiling a polite, benign smile that fell just this side of condescending. The light from the evening sun caught her hair, illuminated the varying shades of red and brown; but the pleasant color didn’t do much to accent her downright boring haircut. Straight bangs across her eyebrows, small dark eyes; all together unassuming and unthreatening, and Eggsy coughs as he lowers his knees from where he’d drawn them up to his chest. 

 

“Who’re you?”

 

“The person who’s going to get you released.”

 

“That ain’t an answer.”

 

Something infinitesimal twitches in her face, and somehow that feels like strike one. There’s a crack in her calm veneer, and the same part of his stomach that twisted when Dean had one too many drinks and raised his voice starts twisting now. He swallows.

 

“Sorry.”

 

“That’s quite alright.” Though the air between them still feels distinctly frosty. “My name is Amelia. Would you please come with me?”

 

“Where?”

 

Her lips whiten where she presses them together slightly. Strike two. Amelia waits until he’s flushed up to his ears, then gestures loosely behind her, where a Bentley is quite illegally parked in the middle of the road.

 

“Come with me, please.”

 

She has to undo his seatbelt for him, and produces keys to the handcuffs out of nowhere. But the next time he’s bid, Eggsy comes without any further complaint.

 

—

 

The training takes two years.

 

—

 

“You could be so much  _ better _ than what you were,” The Saint tells him, leaning casually against the podium while Eggsy kneels before the pulpit like he’s taking communion. 

 

It’s no  _ you can transform _ , but the subsequent — “We can train you." — works just as well.

 

—

 

There’s another  _ rattattat _ of gunfire. Briefly — barely — Eggsy’s eyes open. He hears someone mutter, “Shit!” close at hand and has a moment to marvel at the chances of encountering another Brit overseas like this before passing out again.

 

—

 

(One time during training, he’d almost drowned. Roxy’d had to punch him in the stomach until he’d thrown up half the pool.

 

“Eggsy,” she’d sobbed —) “Wake up!”

 

… huh, that didn’t sound like Roxy. And whoever had hands on him was alternating between touching his face and shaking his shoulders. All together far too gentle an approach for Roxy, which brings him sharply back to reality.

 

The street is warm beneath him from hours baking in the sun, and stinks. His head throbs so painfully that he can feel his teeth ache, and the second time Eggsy opens his eyes, there’s a few moments where he can’t focus on the world around him.

 

Then the dark shadow above him shifts; sharpens. He notes: wide, earnest eyes; a pale mouth pressed in a thin line of worry; ruddy, sunburned cheeks. The man has absolutely immaculate hair, too. He’s somehow the epitome of  _ posh _ , even in the midst of a Moroccan gunfight. There

s a slight sheen of sweat across his saviors brow, but that somehow makes him all the more real. And perfect.

 

Eggsy gives a wheezy gurgle of laughter.

 

“Well, isn’t this  _ romantic _ …”

 

—


	3. Chapter 3

His knight in shining armors name is Harry Hart.

 

And Harry Hart is a fucking worry wort. 

 

“You ain’t gotta stay with me, you know,” Eggsy tells him for the fourth time, wiggling on the sterile, plastic seat cushion in the rather crowded waiting room. They’d already been in urgent care for an hour, and all they’d gotten so far was a towel for Eggsy to hold to the back of his head. Once the profuse bleeding had stopped, Harry’d gotten up and somehow procured a cup of ice, which he’d wrapped in the bloody towel without even batting an eye.

 

Eggsy had asked: “You some kind of a doctor?”

 

And Harry had smiled politely and ducked his head. “I was an army medic for a few years. The sight of blood hardly bothers me anymore. Hold it tightly — yes, just like that.”

 

“Not a medic anymore, though?” he’d pressed, obligingly holding the makeshift ice pack against the laceration in the back of his head and wincing. Harry had chuckled and given him an understanding, sympathetic look. Like he’d been there too.

 

“No, I’ve long retired. I’m a tailor now.”

 

So here he was, mission tits up and being babysat in an international A&E by a tailor.

 

“I’m serious,” Eggsy pushes on when the other man shows no sign of leaving. “I’m sure they’re gonna see me soon. You don’t gotta waste the rest of your vacation here.”

 

Harry had been trying to catch the eye of one of the nursing staff, but glances back at Eggsy with a rather tight smile, like he was trying not to laugh at a joke Eggsy had missed. That look ought to spark irritation, and indeed something tight is stirring in his chest, but it’s…  _ warmer _ than your average hatred.

 

“I’m traveling on business, I’m afraid. Fitting an Albanian prince for his birthday.”

 

“A prince?” His intelligence hadn’t included anything about important royalty, dignitaries, and politicians in the area. But he plays dumb, let's the  _ birthday suit  _ pun slide, and pulls a face. “You at least make him pay for the plane ticket?”

 

“Of course,” Harry chuckles at his joke, and Eggsy’s pursed lips twitch upward.

 

“Good. Charge double, call it an ‘international gunfight’ fee.”

 

“Not a bad idea. I’ll have to run that one by my employer.” He got the distinct impression that Harry’d do no such thing, but still spends a few moments grinning like an easily bemused moron until an overworked nurse beckons him up and towards a curtained off gurney. 

 

Harry stands as well, and expecting this to be goodbye, Eggsy dawdles a little; gives his best, most sincere smile. He’s putting more effort into being nice to this man that he had any one person outside his immediate family within the last two years. It feels… weird. Like his people skills are rusted from disuse. It’s an odd realization, but he’s halfway through a sentence, and years of well practiced lying makes it easy to smooth over any unwelcome lurches in his stomach. “Thanks again. For saving my arse.”

 

“Any time. Though hopefully never again.”

 

“And for staying with me. You really didn’t have to.”

 

Harry holds his gaze, says: “It was my pleasure.” And Eggsy could swear that the other man's eyes flick downward and catch on his mouth before he can turn around to gather his belongings from the chair. “It was lovely to meet you, Eggsy.”

 

“Yeah. Maybe I’ll see you around.” 

 

“Maybe.”

 

“Back home.”

 

“Maybe.”

 

“Under better circumstances.”

 

“Under better circumstance,” Harry agrees, and neither of them move for a second. But the nurse is impatient, and herds him away towards his impromptu operating suite the second Eggsy unlocks his knees. He doesn’t want to break eye contact with Harry — he’s smiling a tiny smile, and the lines around his eyes are intriguing — but this isn’t the time nor place to be slobbering over civilians.

 

He was still technically in the middle of a mission. And the Saint was about as much of a romantic as the sadistic, glorified medical assistant who was pressing disinfectant wipes into his skull.

 

* * *

 

“Dr. Jeffords has been located just outside of Vladivostok.”

 

“Understood.”

 

“Your plane will be departing at 0700 tomorrow morning, agent.”

 

“Understood.”

 

* * *

 

It doesn’t entirely feel like coincidence anymore. But he’s never been one to buy into the idea of  _ fate _ , and can’t bring himself to feel much other than frustrated resignation as he crawls onto the bar stool beside Harry in the hotel restaurant.

 

“What happened to your prince?” he drawls after pleasantries, admittedly having downed his painkillers with vodka in the room upstairs, and leaning a getting a little too friendly with the bartop he was leaning against.

 

“He didn’t like the selection of cuts I had to offer.”

 

“Aw,” Eggsy intones sympathetically, and blames the drugs that have him carrying on unchecked. “I’m sure you have excellent cuts.”

 

Harry seems bemused, but reserved. “Are you drunk?”

 

“Not enough after today.” Jeffords was nowhere to be found. He’d be flying from Morocco to London, and London to Russia within the next seventeen hours, and would probably miss Daisy’s birthday party. He deserved a little oblivion in place of his frustration, and there was probably enough alcohol behind the bar to offer him some measure of relief. Harry had been eyeing Eggsy up and down with slight skepticism for a moment or two, but seems to get on board with his agenda, and raises his finger to the bartender to order two ridiculously specific martinis.

 

“I usually take mine with vodka,” Eggsy admits after the neatly shaven man walks away with their drink orders. Alcohol is alcohol, and given the choice he would always take a good beer over something that fancy.

 

The confession earns a brief look of surprise from Harry, which is then smoothed over into resolve. The older man assures him that a good martini should never be disgraced by the addition of vodka or vermouth, and they promptly receive their drinks by the end of the lecture. It’s nothing special, in Eggsy’s opinion; tastes bitter, and doesn’t go down that smooth. But Harry is reveling in his drink, and he rationalizes he could stomach the gin if it meant they could continue on this easy conversational route they’d started on.

 

Which they do. They talk about Harry’s time as a field medic when he’d been younger, a tangent that drifts dangerously close to the perpetually open wound that is Lee Unwin and his stint in the Marines. But Eggsy veers them to safer ground, instead regaling Harry with the most interesting injuries he’s ever had to have been treated for. (Occasions caused by his stepfather and near death experiences are tastefully omitted.) They talk about bland nothings over a good twenty minutes and another round of martinis before Eggsy’s phone vibrates in his pocket with an email confirming his flight in seven and a half hours. 

 

“I ought to let you get off to bed, shouldn’t I?” Harry muses, reaching for his wallet. But Eggsy beats him to the punch, sliding his roomkey across the polished wood bar.

 

“On my tab, please,” he instructs the bartender, who nods and walking away despite Harry’s partial objections.

 

“You didn’t need to do that.”

 

“You saved my life. It just sort of feels like good manners.” 

 

“...Ah,” Harry agrees good-naturedly after a beat, ducking his head and chuckling softly — like there’s a joke Eggsy’s missed out on again. 

 

They stand together, and meander towards the lobby with a pleasant mixture of alcohol and good conversation buzzing in their veins. He’s almost forgotten to be displeased about the work that awaited him at home, or the complete and total bust that today was by the time they reach the elevator and climb in together. 

 

“Which floor?”

 

“Eight, please.”

 

“Oh, you too?”

 

And Eggsy doesn't care enough to be suspicious of the newest of the odd coincidences. He just pushes the button and smiles like a punch drunk puppy, swaying slightly towards Harry as the elevator starts to move, and then away again. 

 

“‘m flying out tomorrow morning,” he offers for no real reason as they zoom past floors two and three. 

 

“Myself as well.”

 

“Hm. Probably can’t buy you breakfast or anything, can I.” And when Harry arches an eyebrow at him speculatively, Eggsy elaborates rather weakly. “You know, for saving my life.”

 

“As if I would let you pay. Besides you’ve said thank you several times over, Eggsy. Please don’t think yourself indebted over this, anyone would have done the same if they were in my position and saw someone in yours.”

 

Going off a lot of his coworkers tendencies and the people he’d hung around growing up, that was most definitely  _ not _ true. But he bites his lip, toddles down the hallway after Harry despite not being invited and rooming at the opposite direction. “Still,” he mutters mutinously. “Wish I could do more.”

 

The lock beeps, and blinks a tiny green light when Harry swipes his keycard and turns the door handle. The room behind him is dark, and probably as plain and stiff as his own expensive sleeping arrangements several doors down. But something about the depth of the dark sparks an idle curiosity inside him, and Eggsy peers over Harry’s shoulder — rather rudely — for a few moments before realizing the other man is holding the door open and waiting. Probably to say a proper goodbye or something. 

 

“Um.”

 

But… No. He hadn’t undergone months of repetitive behavioral analysis and neurolinguistics conditioning to not pick up the subtle cues the body usually gave away, even without the explicit consent of the mind. There’s something tense in the way Harry’s got his arm braced against the door, fingers curled loosely and rubbing his thumb at his knuckles idly. And there’s something weighty in the way he’s looking over Eggsy’s face, like he’s trying to read something. Like he’s  _ considering _ .

 

Eggsy can tell he’s grinning from the sudden pinch in Harry’s face more than because he can actually feel his face moving. A fire flickers low in his stomach, lapping at his lungs and quickly turning the faintly pleasant buzz of drink into a low, electric hum of excitement. A different kind of excitement than one gets from, say, making a difficult shot at a great distance with a sniper rifle. But not unlike the excitement that comes from almost being found out, almost being killed.

 

“I’d like to do more.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“ _ Let me _ do more for you.”

 

He shoulders his way into the room, and Harry retreats like they’re dancing, eyes bright and ridiculously composed when Eggsy’s hands are shaking the second he touches those neatly ironed lapels. Curls his fists in the fabric, and tugs; breathes in the light cologne he hadn’t noticed earlier while they’d been sprawled in the street, and waits (lessons in caution were well learned).

 

But Harry doesn’t object. He doesn’t say much, but his hand comes up to ghost the edge of Eggsy’s jaw, the pads of his fingers ghosting over his dry lips, and that feels a bit like permission. 

 

So they shift backwards again, fluid and complimentary, like a tango to no music. But this is the sort of dance that ends with Eggsy on his knees.

 

* * *

 

He leaves before the sun has really risen. Dawn is a threat on the horizon, and he has a plane to catch which leaves no time to sit idle and note the adorable way Harry twitches in his dreams. Eggsy makes a point not to watch the other man sleep at all, and tries not to look back on his way to the door. 

 

But impulse — the rebellious cousin of caution, often seen hand-in-hand with chaos — has him doubling back; rummaging through the hotel desk drawer at 5am for a pen and pad of paper to scrawl a quick note on, a quick… something. He hasn’t really got any specific message in mind until he’s hunched over the bedside table, and hesitates. Chews the pen cap, weighs the worth, considers the cons. And quickly scribbles a note and leaves.

 

* * *

 

Harry Hart is not at all surprised the young man is gone when he awakes. He’s also not surprised that Eggsy Unwin believed he was still sleeping while he had quietly puttered around the room for his clothes. It had been a nice encounter, but nothing all that special on the surface. All the while Harry had chocked last night up to another international one night fling that would never pan out, and tried not to think about how Eggsy had slept with an arm flung across his waist and drooled ever so daintily on the pillows. It doesn't surprise him that he's gone. 

 

What surprises him is the boring hotel stationary on his bedside table, emblazoned with gaudy letterhead and ultimately uninspiring but for the sloppy handwriting and mobile number scrawled across the bottom of the page.

 

_ in case i ever need a body shield again _

_ — eggsy _

 

“Well,” he hums aloud, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose thoughtfully and trying not to overanalyze the swoops of his messy cursive, or the sharp tick in his numbers. 

  
“Well,” Merlin agrees in his ear, spectacles humming to life and personal heads up display opening up in the lenses. “Good morning, Galahad. We’ve a plane for you to Alaska in three hours, get dressed.”

**Author's Note:**

> comments & kudos feed the soul! i'll add more tags/warnings as i go. 
> 
> thank you to my lovely beta for at least the quick once over you did, it helped lots! and thank you to jen, my partner in murky, disgusting hartwin thoughts and plots!


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